1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for guiding a route, and more particularly, to a stride-based route guiding apparatus and method capable of providing a pedestrian with a stride-based route through a personal navigation system.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, a navigation system provides information on a current position of a moving object and route information from the current position to a destination. Various moving objects, for example, vessels, air crafts, vehicles, pedestrians, etc., may include or carry a navigation system if necessary. Although such a navigation system has been mainly utilized as a requisite equipment in aircrafts or vessels, adoption of the navigation system in vehicles has recently been popularized. In particular, the use of personal navigation systems is increasing.
A car navigation system provides a driver with a route from a current position to a destination on an electronic map and information on the remaining distance and traveling direction from the current position to a major routing position such as an intersection ahead of the major routing position so that he/she can drive the car along a traveling route without deviating from the route. Also, a personal navigation system (PNS) provides a pedestrian with information on the remaining distance and traveling direction from the current position to a major routing position such as an intersection ahead of the major routing position. The navigation system provides the pedestrian with other information including the remaining distance from the current position to the destination and an estimated necessary time from the current position to the destination. Furnishing of the routing information is referred to as routing guidance. The routing guidance provides the routing information based on positioning information regarding the current position to the driver or pedestrian.
Several position measuring techniques to measure the current position of the moving object (for example, a vehicle, vessel, pedestrian, or the like) have been developed. As one example of the position measuring techniques, a positioning technique using a so-called “Dead Reckoning (DR)” approach has been proposed. The positioning technique using the dead-reckoning process recognizes a relative user's position and traveling direction on the basis of the previous position information. Specifically, the positioning technique using the DR approach generally measures the traveling distance and direction of the moving object using a sensor for sensing a rotary motion (for example, a gyroscope) and a sensor for sensing a rectilinear motion (for example, accelerometer). Consequently, the measuring techniques using the DR approach need these sensors. For example, various navigation systems for vehicles, vessels, or pedestrians include sensors to measure the traveling direction and distance of the vehicles, vessels, or pedestrians. The sensors can be used in the navigation systems irrespective of the kind of the vehicles, vessels, or pedestrians.
The navigation system provides the remaining distance from the current position to the major position or destination in a standard distance unit such as a meter or mile. For example, a route guiding message, such as, “Turn right 30 meters ahead.” or “Go straight on at an intersection 20 meters ahead.” is outputted through a screen or loudspeaker.
As described above, in the case in which the method of notifying the remaining distance to a major position or destination in a standard length unit is applied to a pedestrian, it is not helpful to the pedestrians having differently sized strides in intuitively perceiving the remaining distance, unlike a vehicle. Also, the method of notifying the remaining distance to the major position or destination in the standard length unit is not based on the pedestrian's stride, and thus the pedestrian may not find this convenient.